The Sharks had the perfect holiday gift for the sellout crowd at HP Pavilion on Tuesday night: a no-anxiety 5-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks that reminded everyone just how dominant the team can be when everything is clicking.

And it was inspired by the 6-0 shellacking that San Jose suffered in Detroit five nights earlier.

That night, the Sharks were the team playing the second half of back-to-backs, a third game in four nights with travel. Tuesday night, the Canucks were in that same position.

"We actually talked about that," Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said. "How we felt physically and how well Detroit played to shut us down. We wanted to match that a little bit tonight."

Wins are common enough at HP Pavilion these days — this was the Sharks' 20th home game this season without a regulation loss — but many have been of the nerve-racking variety.

Not this one.

The Sharks got goals from each member of their top line: Patrick Marleau, Devin Setoguchi and Joe Thornton. They got one from defenseman Rob Blake, a sample of season-long scoring from the blue line. They got 33 saves and a shutout from goalie Evgeni Nabokov, his second of the season.

The fifth goal? It came from third-line left wing Tomas Plihal, and it not only ended the night for Canucks goalie Cory Schneider, but it also enabled the Sharks to set a franchise record for fastest five goals from the start of a game.

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The Sharks scored their five goals in 20 minutes, 43 seconds, breaking their previous best time by 35 seconds. That was set Nov. 13 against the Calgary Flames, but before this season, the previous record had stood for 16 years.

"When you can get them quick like that, it kind of demoralizes the other team," Setoguchi said. "You look over at their bench and they've got long faces, holding their heads down."

Three goals less than three minutes apart in the first period more than decided things.

The first came at 4:22 when Blake pinched deep into the offensive zone and was in position to put a rebound of right wing Jonathan Cheechoo's shot off the back boards.

Two power-play goals 74 seconds apart followed.

The first came when Marleau took another puck off the back boards, then carried it around the back of the net before firing a 14-foot wrist shot past Schneider at 5:55. The next came at 7:09 when Setoguchi redirected a Marleau pass/shot into the Vancouver net.

As if that wasn't enough, two goals in the first minute of the second period cemented the outcome.

The Sharks' fourth goal came when Thornton backhanded a rebound past Schneider from 10 feet. Nineteen seconds after that, Plihal took advantage of a giveaway by Canucks center Ryan Kessler and fired the puck into the net to make it 5-0.

At that point, Canucks Coach Alain Vigneault replaced Schneider with Curtis Sanford, who stopped the 16 shots he faced the rest of the way.

Marleau had a goal and two assists, giving him 40 points for the season and moving him into a tie for fourth in the NHL scoring race. Dan Boyle had two assists, giving him 29 for the season and a three-point lead over Nashville's Shea Weber as the league's top-scoring defenseman.

All in all, a holiday present for San Jose's players, coaches and crowd.